Prepaid services are becoming a widely accepted form of service provision. Prepaid services have the advantage of simplifying service provision and billing. An example is prepaid long distance telephone service. A customer buys a prepaid long distance card at a retail point of sale. The prepaid card provides the purchaser with predetermined number of long distance telephone minutes at a predetermined price. As a theft deterrent, the card is activated at the time of sale. Thereafter the customer follows the long distance phone dialing instructions on the prepaid card to utilize the prepaid long distance telephone service.
Prepaid services have advantages over other more conventional methods of service provision. For example, the customer may be anonymous, thereby maintaining privacy. A customer need not provide personal identification to acquire a prepaid service. For another example, the cost of the service is predictable. Since the service is prepaid, the customer need not worry about the cost of the service becoming unexpectedly excessive. No customer billing by the service provider is necessary and the customer receives no surprise bills. Consequently, prepaid services are an effective tool for managing a budget of a customer. Furthermore, since the prepaid service provider need not administer customer collections or customer contracts, prepaid service is an effective service distribution tool for service providers.
Internet service, particularly high speed broadband Internet service, can be an expensive proposition for the occasional customer. Such Internet service includes cable or DSL and typically requires a long-term contract with the service provider. Presently, monthly billing averages around fifty dollars per month. While customers may prefer the service, occasional use of the service weighed against the cost may prove undesirable to certain customers. In this case a customer may allow an existing service contract to expire. Thereafter, the customer is left with an established broadband connection to the Internet service provider and a working modem for interfacing with the Internet service provider. However, the customer's use may be so occasional as to not warrant continuing the contract or a billing relationship. Thus, the occasional customer is left without broadband Internet service even though the customer has the equipment to readily interface with the broadband Internet service provider.
Similar problems arise in other areas of personal computer use. For example, a customer may want to occasionally play an Internet enabled computer game without paying full price for a fully enable gaming software package. Similarly, a provider of such a gaming software package may desire protection against theft of services. Alternately, a thin client service provider allows a client's personal computer to utilize programs operating on service a provider's servers. However, if a client's use is occasional, establishing a contact and billing cycle between the user and service provider may not be warranted.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus that addresses the advantages of prepaid services while resolving the problems of providing services partially implemented on a personal computer and partially implemented on another networked computer.